Artichokes Support Springtime Health

Oh, my favorite inexplicably delicious vegetable. When I was growing up, my mom would steam each of us an artichoke, whip up a batch of hollandaise, and we’d sit down and get to work making a giant pile of finished leaves in the middle of the table. In my memory, that was the whole meal, though I’m guessing I’m just forgetting whatever else might have been served because I just loved the painstaking process of dismembering the choke leaf by leaf. You had to finish because otherwise you wouldn’t get to scrape out the middle and eat the real treat at the end. These days, I usually make a dip with greek yogurt, garlic, and italian herbs, or a little olive oil with lemon juice rather than the hollandaise to lighten things up a bit, but it’s still an event here on artichoke night.

Artichokes are a wonderful springtime treat not only because they are in season, delicious, and a fun activity that keeps everyone focused on dinner, but because they also support our body’s specific health needs during this season. They are high in inulin, the mysterious fructooligosaccharide I spoke about in my article about Jerusalem Artichokes. This means they support the health of the large intestine which will promote the removal of wastes from the body.